THREE+ME: Trust and Cheez-Its

Knowing the right thing and doing the right thing are different things

Em LeighHerald News Staff

I know I shouldn’t eat Cheez-Its. I know. They’re not good for me.

It’s a simple enough concept: Don’t. Eat. Cheez-Its.

Right? It’s not hard. But sometimes, I do it anyway.

I’m learning the same goes for kids and telling the truth.

It’s a simple enough concept: Tell. The. Truth.

In my mind, it’s not hard. But presently, it’s an ongoing lesson, particularly for the younger of my two stepkids, Jan. She’s 6, and occasionally has a tendency to say or do things that are, well, not truthful.

There was the time we went out to dinner, and she complained the whole way there how hungry she was; we believed her, she was probably in fact hungry. But four bites of food later, she told me — multiple times — she felt like she was “going to puke.”

Her dad and I both knew that wasn’t true; she was just looking for attention. That was confirmed when, as soon as we left the restaurant, she promptly asked for a snack.

I told her it was wrong to lie, and explained how telling us she was going to puke counted as a lie. It made it difficult for us to trust her, I said, because how could we know when she was really feeling sick, if she lied when she wasn’t feeling sick?

Less than 24 hours later, the perfect example presented itself. Jumping on a trampoline, Jan and her brother Joe collided. It was clear they were in actual pain. And as my husband and I helped them to chairs, Jan said the same thing she’d said just the night before: “I feel like I’m going to puke.”

This time, it was probably closer to the truth. But when she calmed down from crying, I gently pointed out that I wasn’t sure if I could believe her. She’d used the same phrase last night, when it wasn’t true, so how could I believe her now?

“I want to trust you,” I told her. “But you make it hard sometimes, when you don’t tell the truth.”

Her brother helped me explain the story of the boy who cried wolf, hoping that would help her understand. And not long after, she had another chance to put this being-truthful thing into practice.

We were playing hide and seek, and each time Joe hid, Jan and I closed our eyes — or more accurately, I closed mine, and held a hand over a squirmy Jan to make sure she wasn’t peeking. After a round or two of this, it occurred to me that I wasn’t doing either of us any favors by going about the game this way. She’s old enough to understand that cheating is bad. Besides, if I kept shutting her eyes for her, in a way it was reinforcing that I didn’t trust her enough to do it herself.

I almost quit cold-turkey, sitting in a separate chair, keeping my fingers crossed that she’d keep her eyes shut. But I caught myself — I should make sure she understood what was going on, so she had the best chance possible of following the rules.

I knelt next to her, at her eye level. “Jan, you know cheating is bad, right?”

“Yes,” she said.

“In this game, what counts as cheating?” I wanted her to explain to me what she understood, instead of me filling in all the blanks for her and letting her passively agree.

“Looking when Joe is hiding,” she said.

“Exactly.” OK, she got it. “You’re a big girl. You know cheating is wrong, and you’re not supposed to open your eyes. So I’m not gonna cover your eyes anymore, OK? You’re big enough to close your own eyes. I’m trusting you, OK? I’m trusting you to keep your eyes closed and play by the rules. You understand?”

She said she did.

We closed our eyes.

And less than a minute later, when I heard both Joe and my husband start exclaiming “Jan! You’re looking! What are you doing?” — my heart sank.

She’d peeked.

Even after I’d made sure she and I were on the same page, given her space and freedom to do the right thing, she’d still gone ahead and looked. It wasn’t a “lie,” but it was still breaking my trust.

“I want to trust you,” I told her, “but you make it hard sometimes. You hurt my feelings. I’m sad.”

“Trust” might have been too much of an abstract concept for a 6-year-old. Maybe I should use the word “belief” in the future instead. Maybe I should have phrased it better. But she got the idea it was wrong.